


bubblegum soda

by tealseal



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Relationship Study, except for the post canon stuff, for the purposes of happy endings, i did take the liberty of moving oiks back to japan, nonlinear, this is very experimental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24922411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealseal/pseuds/tealseal
Summary: a love letter, written in the flavors of two lives intertwined.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	bubblegum soda

i. the grapefruit popsicle, on your front porch 

you ate so slowly— _iwa-chan! it's cold!_ —that half of it ended up in a flaxen puddle at our feet. you cried for six and a half minutes. i thought it shouldn't be possible for someone so small to fit so much water inside.  
that day, i decided that i never wanted to see you cry again. 

_silly iwa-chan. we don't always get what we want._

ii. that shiny rose lip balm you wore in high school

you didn't notice, but i'd watch every time you got it out, swiping your pinkie into the little plastic jar and slathering it onto your perfect pout. i don't remember when i first wanted to know how it tasted, but i'll never forget the day i finally found out, in a haze of embroidered couch cushions and the warmth of your mouth on mine. i had imagined a sensory overload (like you are, so much of the time), but it was only rose, sticky and sugary, like the sound of your breathless giggles. 

_hajime_ , you murmured, and i was yours. 

iii. the chocolate pancakes that you burned, in a valiant attempt to surprise me

i could see your lower lip trembling, so i shoved two of them into my mouth at once and managed some kind of muffled _mm's good, t'ru!_  
you were skeptical, but i swallowed—really, charcoal isn't the worst flavor—and took your hand and smiled.  
"why don't we go to that new cafe that yahaba found? where was it again?"  
"toshima," you said, bright again. you'd been bugging me to try this place for weeks. supposedly, they were in the running for best pancakes in tokyo.  
you hummed to yourself while you put on your coat, and i wondered if you knew how lucky i was. 

iv. the rubber top of your water bottle 

i often made fun of you for carrying it around everywhere, to which you'd snark about your superior soft skin and my lack of hygiene. but today, i was glad for your vanity, because the sun was hot and my uniform was stifling and our parents weren't going to let us go until they'd taken at least a million more pictures.  
"iwa-chan, you're all sweaty," you chirped, shoving the bottle into my hands. "i know i'm a lot to handle, but i'd think you'd be used to it by now!"  
i made sure to drink every last drop before swinging my fist. you dodged, and, laughing, i chased you out of the gates of aobajousai for the last time. 

you didn't look back, not even once, and neither did i. 

v. the mango flower from the street food festival

"not fair, iwa-chan," you moaned, drooling through a screen too small to ever do you justice.  
it was nice, i told myself, being in closer time zones. but six thousand miles was six thousand too many, and my arms longed to hold you close.  
"it would be too spicy for you anyway," i teased, breaking off a chili-specked cube and holding it up for you to see. "your nose would be running, whinykawa."  
"and i thought americans were supposed to be sissies," you pouted.  
"it's california," i grinned. "everything here is over-the-top."  
"speaking of over-the-top," you said, "i tossed for tobio-chan's shrimp in rio last week! he's there training—isn't that funny?"  
you paused before adding, mostly to yourself, "i guess he's not so shrimpy anymore. ah, but he's nothing compared to my iwa-chan~!"  
the shimmer that settled in your eyes suited you, so, for once, i didn't burst your bubble. instead, i listened to you chatter about your team and the beach and the wide, blue sea, and did my best to quiet my aching heart. 

vi. the glittery nail polish at your eleventh birthday party, the first time we really fought

it had some awful name like _disco ball_ , and it wasn't intended for children to ingest. but you were angry at me for playing a game with some of your little cousins, and in a fit of blazing desire for my attention, you poured the whole bottle down your throat.  
later, when i was allowed to visit you, i shook you by the shoulders and yelled until i was shushed by the hospital staff— _dumbass! dumbass oikawa! you could have died, you know that? what the hell were you thinking?_

i didn't say it, but it buzzed around our heads like party balloons: _what the hell would i have done without you?_

vii. yakisoba bread, outside mizota mart

we'd just won our first match, so takanashi-san treated us, _because i'm a generous captain!_  
_because you're a political monster_ , hanamaki snickered, and takanashi-san clutched his heart and lamented his ungrateful underclassmen.  
little watari beamed up at you and asked if you'd treat us, too, when you became captain. you ruffled his fuzzy head for the rest of the evening while hanamaki and matsukawa cackled, because _there's no way in hell they'll let oikawa be captain next year! don't give him that kind of ego trip! like he needs it!_  
i had no idea who else they thought could possibly be more capable. i told you so, later, on the walk up our street.  
you shrugged, brushed it off—but your expression sharpened, and it took my breath away. i couldn't wait for the others to discover just how exhilarating it was to be led by you. 

viii. those pink-frosted animal crackers, in the backseat of your dad's car

it belongs to the blurred border between early childhood and a lucid dream: you and your neon green sippy cup and two quilted car seats. when i asked my mother, years later, she laughed and told me it had been a trip to the seaside, the summer your family moved in to the periwinkle house next door. you never liked staying still for long, so the little cats and sparrows and elephants with their glossy icing and cheery sprinkles had been a crafty distraction.  
_you kept trying to feed them to him_ , my mother laughed. _you wouldn't eat a single one yourself._

it lasted until you upended the bag between us, letting loose a menagerie of crumbs that your dad would be cleaning out of the crevices for years. 

to this day, you don't like staying still, but distracting you is an art worth studying. 

ix. rain in miyagi 

takeru was the first to reach you, a rocket in all his rapidly-growing glory. i pretended not to be jealous, but i rubbed my knuckles extra hard on the back of his head when he let go.  
"he's not the only one who's been away, you know," i told him, and he stuck his tongue out, and a petulant voice echoed a thousand childish nicknames across the years.  
we were swept up in our families' tearful joy— _welcome home! how long are you staying this time? we missed you_ —and it wasn't until later, under the lilac tree in my backyard, the air thick with the oncoming storm, that i was able to truly take it all in.  
"you're here," i said.  
"i'm here," you agreed. 

you still wore those giant glasses, the ones i'd never admit that i thought were adorable (you knew it anyway). right now, they were splattered with tiny droplets, because you'd never been one to sacrifice aesthetic for common sense. 

i reached out to take them off, and you shivered like it was the first time. 

we clung to one another, the rain weaving into our clothes and ears and open mouths, as if it could knit patches for all our empty spaces. 

x. bubblegum soda, on the roof of kitagawa daiichi 

you shook your bottle, delighted by the sound of the marble clacking on the glass, and i laughed when it exploded all over your shirt. _serves you right, idiot_ , i said, but i gave mine to you anyway. 

you were too quiet, and there were at least a hundred things i could have said ( _we'll beat them next year, i'll do better, you have nothing to prove because i know you're the best_ ), but in that sunswept afternoon, they all lost their meaning, spiraling into a single focal point: 

"i'll stick with you, if you stick with me." 

when you smiled, i thought, maybe all those losses were worth something, after all. 

xi. the melon candies that summer at the park

you had twisted your ankle trying to show off on the swings, and i did the best thing my eight-year-old brain could think of: stuffed your hands full of colorful wrappers and carried you home on my back.  
your nose was running and you clutched at my shirt with your sticky little fingers, like some kind of parasitic monkey.  
_iwa-chan!_ you wailed. _please take care of me!_

_stupid tooru_ , i said. _like i wouldn't_. 

like i could ever stop. 

xii. chamomile tea, on the fire escape outside the kitchen window

you'd wanted to stargaze, but the tokyo lights were unforgiving, and even the moon was muted.  
"come on, hajime," you giggled. "we can pretend they're there. ooh! look! a ufo!"  
you pointed at a ghostly cloud, and i couldn't stop laughing.  
your face was alight, neon lavender in the city glow, and i wanted to take you inside—to our room, to _our_ bed—and kiss that ridiculous smile into senselessness.  
but tonight was only the first, and there would be plenty of time later for cotton candy kisses and shared coffee and warm, vanilla evenings on the horrible yellow sofa you'd found in that alley. so i wrapped my hands around my steaming mug, and you leaned on my shoulder and tilted your face upward, searching for aliens in the dusty sky. 

tomorrow, you would work too hard, and next week, perhaps, we would fight, and in a few months, i'd call you names and you'd pout until i kissed the tip of your nose and combed my fingers through your beautiful hair. we would make disastrous attempts at cooking, and taunt each other over mario kart, and spend our nights tangled together in sheets that smelled like cheap fabric softener. but for now, i was content to be at your side, and to cherish this partnership that we'd stumbled into, as if we'd had a choice, as if it hadn't been determined by some spirit of fate. 

and although we were silent, the night hummed with the taste of the words in our hearts.


End file.
